Attempts by Governor Okoth Obado's aides Michael Oyamo and Caspal Obiero to have Justice Jessie Lessit withdrawn from a murder case that brought the country into standstill last year might backfire.
Mrs Melida Auma, Sharon Otieno's mother, has opposed the application by Oyamo and Obiero, arguing that Justice Jessie Lessit should preside over the case.
Sharon Otieno was murdered last year. The two aides along Governor Okoth Obado were implicated in the murder. The trial was supposed to commence on Tuesday but the application has since delayed it.
“I do apprehend, and reasonably so, that I shall not be accorded a fair and impartial trial and I request that the case against me be presided over by any judge other than Justice Lessit,” Oyamo had stated last week.
The two accuse Justice Lessit of partiality in the handling of the case. According to them, Lessit has already made her position even before the official beginning of the trial.
But in an application on Tuesday, Mrs Melida Auma says the move by the two amounts to delay tactic. She insists that the presiding judge has committed no single wrong so far to warrant her removal.
“Their case should be dismissed and the murder case proceed to pre-trial since no justifiable reason has been presented to warrant refusal of the judge,’’ she argued adding that it was a tactic to delay hearing the case.
The two were charged with murder of Sharon and her unborn child. While Obado was granted bail after one month, Oyamo and Obiero had to wait for three more months to have the bail.